LBCC administrators should be replaced: Letters for Tuesday May 21, 2013

Re "Recall is not the answer to cuts at LBCC" (Editorial, May 15): Your editorial said that it makes "good sense" to gut the vocational programs at Long Beach City College based on the data presented by the administration. I was at that forum and what your editorial writer apparently did not notice in the presentation was that the administration data was based on data averaged over the last six years. That includes the depths of the recent recession. So the administrators are getting LBCC ready for the recession instead of the recovery! I don't know who these administrators are trying to serve, but it does not include the citizens of Long Beach or the LBCC student body. They need to be replaced. -- Daniel D. Villani, Long Beach

Seems the GOP has collective amnesia

Collective amnesia sets in again among Republicans regarding misdeeds perpetrated during the Bush-Cheney reign.

In 2004: the rector of Pasadena's Saints Episcopal Church sermonized: "Jesus [would say], 'Mr. President, your doctrine of preemptive war is a failed doctrine.'" The Internal Revenue Service threatened to revoke the church's tax-exempt status; the IRS audited the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People after its chairman criticized President Bush for being the first president since Herbert Hoover not to address the organization. "They are saying if you criticize the president we are going to take your tax exemption away from you," then-chairman Julian Bond said. In 2006, the pressure group Public Interest Watch -- recipient of 97 percent of its funds from ExxonMobil one year -- got the IRS to open an investigation into Greenpeace. Greenpeace had labeled ExxonMobil the "No. 1 climate criminal." The IRS threatened to revoke Greenpeace's tax-exempt status.

Raising the issue at the time of this selective targeting of "liberal" groups, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) found only one Republican willing to join him in calling for an investigation. Does anyone else hear echoes of "He who casts the first stone?" -- Judith Olmsted Powell, Long Beach

Mayoral candidates throwing dirt in campaign

Mayoral candidates Wendy Greuel and Eric Garcetti are throwing a lot of dirt at each other. It is nothing more than politics. Neither one of the candidates truly cares about the citizens of Los Angeles. They are strictly politicians and both are in this race for no one but themselves. He did/she did. He said/she said. They are both liars. John Q. Public, take your pick and live with it. It is going to be a long four years. -- Glen Peterson, Long Beach

Popping the bubbles of the soda tax editorial

Re "Popping the bubbles of the latest soda tax" (Editorial, May 8): Our nation is faced with two crises related to obesity: this generation will have foreshortened life spans and the chronic diseases caused by obesity is a factor in increasing health care costs. Sodas are a cause of obesity and taxing this unnecessary product makes sense.

Americans consume 300 more calories each day than we did in the 1970s and 43 percent of those additional calories come from sugar-sweetened drinks. In California, a shocking 41 percent of children age 2-11, 62 percent of adolescents age 12-17 and 24 percent of adults drink at least one sugar-sweetened beverage every day. The penny an ounce tax proposed by the bill now in the California Legislature will create a Children's Health Promotion Fund that will be used for obesity prevention. This is a measure supported by the facts. -- Ellen Alkon, Rolling Hills Estates